Quote
Imaginary Neighbors
Dear Neighbors,

I am extremely introverted, to the point that I become irritable when I don't get enough time to myself. My partner suffers from anxiety. Both of us feel extremely drained after a full day of work, and we look forward to peace and quiet in our home. It's our time to relax, to recover from the stress of daily life. We are aware that living in a city entails some compromise, and believe me, we are compromising every minute of the day that we are outside the home. It's not unreasonable for us to want to be able to sleep, in our own home.

But you unilaterally decided to have a baby, knowing that you lived in a small apartment with thin walls. You think we should be understanding about the howling and midnight feedings, because "the human race would go extinct if nobody had kids." You think we should be sympathetic of the sleep deprivation YOU CHOSE. You think we should care if you were torn in half by childbirth, but you seem to forget that you are the one who wanted the kid. You, and nobody else. We don't give a fuck if he has colic or is teething, we just want quiet.

Somehow, we doubt that it was the fate of society that was on your mind when you decided not to adopt, but to create yet another consumer. Experts figure the planet will be unfit for human habitation by the time your precious little baby is an adult, and yet you have the nerve to call us selfish. Your kid is going to call you far worse, when the Amazon is ashes, the Arctic is water, and everyone is starving. But of course you were thinking of none of that, or about anyone else around you, only about what you wanted.

So spare us the suggestion that we should happily give up the expectation of quiet in our home, because you are just another set of self-centered assholes who think everyone should suffer for your choice. You have no concern about the quality of your child's life, so why should we? Fuck you.

Quote

A letter to… our neighbours with a baby.

It’s been three years, and your child is now a lively and boisterous toddler. I hear her shouting with glee and running around until there is a crash, and then I hear your voices through our shared walls, scolding or soothing depending on the mishap. I don’t doubt you’re good parents. There seems to be a lot of love in your household.

My wife and I are childless through choice, but we have never judged anyone’s decision to become parents. This was tested to the limit when we moved in next door to you, only a few days before your daughter was born.

Now my wife and I have some experience of what it would be like to be new parents: we know how it feels to be woken several times a night by what, at that hour, has the effect on the nerves of a fire alarm. You chose to keep your daughter in the master bedroom with you: a single layer of brick was our only protection from months of nightly screaming. Her protracted wailing cost us dozens of hours of sleep at a time when our careers were stressful and demanding. It placed an unwelcome strain on our own relationship, and soured our enjoyment of our new home.

You never apologised, or even mentioned it. I saw no evidence you ever tried to mitigate the noise for our sake, by moving her to another room, say. I’ve known enough new parents to know it won’t have occurred to you to do so. We certainly never asked: in our child-worshipping culture, there is no more egregious social blunder than to request that a parent limit the disturbance caused by their young offspring. It’s assumed that we, a childless couple, don’t understand and have no right to comment.

We do understand parenthood is difficult and frustrating and, above all, exhausting. I’m sure that whatever we endured was orders of magnitude worse for you. However, as callous as this may sound, the world doesn’t stop just because you’ve had a child. The people around you have their own lives to cope with, their own problems that they don’t inflict on others. To expect them to share your discomfort is deeply selfish.

Last week I overheard you telling another neighbour that you’re having a second baby. I don’t expect you will show any more consideration for us than you did with your first. I just hope this one turns out to be a little quieter.

Quote
lurker-derp

Quote

A letter to… our neighbours with a baby.

It’s been three years, and your child is now a lively and boisterous toddler. I hear her shouting with glee and running around until there is a crash, and then I hear your voices through our shared walls, scolding or soothing depending on the mishap. I don’t doubt you’re good parents. There seems to be a lot of love in your household.

My wife and I are childless through choice, but we have never judged anyone’s decision to become parents. This was tested to the limit when we moved in next door to you, only a few days before your daughter was born.

Now my wife and I have some experience of what it would be like to be new parents: we know how it feels to be woken several times a night by what, at that hour, has the effect on the nerves of a fire alarm. You chose to keep your daughter in the master bedroom with you: a single layer of brick was our only protection from months of nightly screaming. Her protracted wailing cost us dozens of hours of sleep at a time when our careers were stressful and demanding. It placed an unwelcome strain on our own relationship, and soured our enjoyment of our new home.

You never apologised, or even mentioned it. I saw no evidence you ever tried to mitigate the noise for our sake, by moving her to another room, say. I’ve known enough new parents to know it won’t have occurred to you to do so. We certainly never asked: in our child-worshipping culture, there is no more egregious social blunder than to request that a parent limit the disturbance caused by their young offspring. It’s assumed that we, a childless couple, don’t understand and have no right to comment.

We do understand parenthood is difficult and frustrating and, above all, exhausting. I’m sure that whatever we endured was orders of magnitude worse for you. However, as callous as this may sound, the world doesn’t stop just because you’ve had a child. The people around you have their own lives to cope with, their own problems that they don’t inflict on others. To expect them to share your discomfort is deeply selfish.

Last week I overheard you telling another neighbour that you’re having a second baby. I don’t expect you will show any more consideration for us than you did with your first. I just hope this one turns out to be a little quieter.

Quote
freya
It has been awhile since I experienced loud neighbors with a baybee but if it happens again my neighbors can expect to be greeted with crying baby noises through the walls while they try to sleep. I would either record their baybee crying and put it on loop or find it elsewhere.

Quote
Moo
Aside from the advice that your baby should sleep in the same room as you until they are six months old to minimise the risk of cot death, why on earth would we move our baby into his own room early just so that you can sleep better? Why don’t you sleep in your spare room, if it bothers you that much? Or get some decent earplugs, perhaps?